Top 7... ways games can transform you into a superior human being

If when you look around, you aren’t instantly checking your six, looking for exits, cover opportunities, medical supplies, save points and possible sniper positions then perhaps gaming can help. From video games you learn to pay attention to your surroundings so that you instantly pick up on all the necessary information to prolong your survival.

A veteran gamer doesn’t look at a screen of Modern Warfare 2 and just see a pretty picture of a gun and some greenery. He sees a Famas equipped with ACOG scope, mounted grenade launcher and blue tiger detail. He knows instantly his ammo status, equipped perks, killstreaks, team score, grenade type, equipment, enemy positions and where the nearest ammo drop is.

Gaming teaches you to pay attention to these details and all whilst saving your own skin and shooting the face off of the opposition.

1. Gaming increases determination

Without determination we can't achieve anything let alone get all 1000 gamerpoints or platinum trophies on our favourite games. Playing games will train you to increase your levels of determination to that of beyond a regular human being.

As gamers, sometimes we play games to relax, other times we play games for fun, more often than not we do it for the love of the medium, but sometimes, just sometimes we do it when we don’t even want to, when we could think of nothing less appealing than heading back into that virtual world that we’d spent the last three months inhabiting.

Why do we do it? To find the last few collectables in order to hit the elusive 100% completion mark. Whether it’s collecting audio logs, shooting pigeons or finding each and every last coin, something within us pushes us on as we strive for perfection whether we like it or not. This is determination. Video games, we are forever in your debt.

March 8, 2010


Actually playing games is the easy bit




Gaming's supreme species, stereotyped and rated




They drive us insane

Latest in Games
Overwatch 2
My hopes for an Overwatch anime or Diablo horror movie are going strong as Blizzard president points out "we are Blizzard Entertainment, and not simply Blizzard Games"
Pokemon Go players brace for the worst as Niantic is sold off for $3.5 billion: "This game is entering its death knell"
Stamp PSP
A 16-year-old pitch for a newly discovered first-party PSP game has me mourning the death of PlayStation's Japan Studio all over again
Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3
Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion actor Neil Newbon says he "got rid of" agents who deliberately kept him away from video game gigs: "They just didn't want me to do it"
Mass Effect
Jennifer Hale says she didn't see a single line as Mass Effect's Commander Shepard until it was time to record: "It was all cold reading on the spot"
Baldur's Gate 3 screenshot of a boss turned to gold surrounded by blood
5,000 gold, 2,500 hours, and one priceless scroll: Baldur's Gate 3 player cooks up a "Midas run" by turning the RPG's bosses into solid gold trophies, because "why not"
Latest in Features
Key art for Assassin's Creed Rogue Remastered showing Shay Patrick Cormac in a black and red outfit that's a cross between Assassin and Templar armor, with his ship The Morrigan behind him
Assassin's Creed Shadows can wait – I spent 40 hours mopping up the map in the one game in the series everyone skipped
Avowed screenshot showing a corpse-like figure's face with glowing purple mushroom/spore growths
I thought I was going evil in Avowed, but one quest changed everything I thought I knew about morality in this RPG
Yakuza 0
10 years on, Yakuza 0 is still one of the strongest entry points to a franchise ever made
The Witcher 3 screenshot of Geralt
Avowed and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 tap into the same thing that makes The Witcher 3 so compelling – and it's something I'm always looking for in RPGs
Marvel Rivals Spider-Man
Spider-Man has become every Marvel Rivals player's worst nightmare
The Iron Mask
The 32 greatest swashbuckler movies ever made